When things were good for Gene Loves Jezebel, as they were through much of the ’80s, they were very good indeed, says Michael Aston. He and twin brother Jay had hit records and music videos, larger and larger concert venues, all the trappings any band might desire.

But rock ‘n’ roll band mates often find the getting along tough as time passes, and the Astons’ increasingly fractious relationship had frayed to near-breaking by the time Gene Loves Jezebel entered the studio to make its 1987 album “The House Of Dolls,” Michael Aston says.

“I made them equals,” he says of the band, which in addition to Jay Aston included Chris Bell, Pete Rizzo and James Stephenson. “I was raised a socialist. We shared everything.

“Drank at the same pub every night. Suddenly they weren’t going to that pub anymore and I thought, ‘What’s going on?’”

What was going on was a band coming apart, with Michael Aston on one side by himself, and Jay Aston on the other with the rest of the band. And over the 30 years since then, while there was a brief reunion in the mid-’90s, Gene Loves Jezebel has been broken off into two groups, one led by each brother, with lawsuits, bad blood, harsh words, and for the last decade what looks an intractable cold war.

If you’ve seen Gene Loves Jezebel in Southern California in the last decade, you’ve seen Michael Aston at the front of the band, as he’ll be on Friday when Gene Loves Jezebel and Missing Persons play the Canyon in Santa Clarita. He’s lived in Los Angeles – Burbank at present – for the past three decades or so, raising five of his six children with his wife, a teacher. He’s also released three Gene Loves Jezebel albums without his brother in the past 20 years.

Michael Aston says it hurt to read his brother’s words, which he felt dismissed his contributions as a songwriter and the lead vocals he sang on the band’s albums. He says he contributed as much or more to songwriting than any other band member.

“At the very least I’m a co-founder. To portray me as the Andrew Ridgeley of Wham! is disgraceful.”

Michael Aston says Jay Aston asked him to work together as Gene Loves Jezebel in the 1990s, which he eventually did only to find himself squeezed out and sidelined during the making of 1997’s “VII,” his songs and lyrics and vocals cut.

“The more they pushed me, it’s like the harder it rains the tighter that coat becomes,” he says. “I felt totally wronged.”

The settlement agreement they eventually reached established a compromise. In the United States, Michael Aston could tour as simply Gene Loves Jezebel, and the same went for Jay Aston in the United Kingdom. When they wanted to travel to play on the other’s home turf, they had to attach their name in front of the band’s. The agreement also included language about not disparaging the other band.

The brothers haven’t seen each other or spoken since their father’s funeral about a decade ago.

Michael Aston released three Gene Loves Jezebel albums since the final break, and says he’s proud of what they prove: “It was my way of showing the world, ‘Well if I don’t have talent, what is this? Who’s writing these melodies? Who’s writing these lyrics?’”

Still, he says that for years he’d have done anything for his brother.

“I would give him my eyes, that’s how much I loved him,” Aston says. “That’s how twins are.

“We do have those three or four records which can never be taken away,” he says of the band’s lasting legacy with both brothers. “And he’s a very talented human being.

“We complement each other enormously,” Aston says. “So we both lost something. But he lost more, in my opinion.”

Gene Loves Jezebel

Also: Gene Loves Jezebel is also part of the Lost ’80s Live tour that plays San Diego on Aug. 31 and Pomona on Dec. 28, and then will be on the Back to the ’80s tour for shows in Pasadena, Santa Clarita and West Hollywood in January.

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.